


Winter in the Valley

by emmykay



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Free Verse, Gen, Song Lyrics, The Mixtape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-10-19 03:30:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: Valley Forge, winter 1777-1778.So much for summer soldier and the sunshine patriot.





	Winter in the Valley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).

> Prompt: This is really specific, but I would love some more expansion on this song. Parts of it become "Stay Alive" but this one has more bitterness and anger over the winter at Valley Forge, their suffering and the lack of help received, and their desertion by the "summer patriots". I am particularly taken by the line that asks if they have made a camp or perimeters for their tomb.  
Hamilton and Washington are the named characters, but I'm interested in the group in general.

[HAMILTON]  
So much for summer soldier and the sunshine patriot  
We got winter burn-outs and midnight deserters  
Backstabbers and traitors, profiteers and mutineers,  
Servants, slaves, conscripts and volunteers.  
Poor and rich, some of them don't even speak English,  
Soldiers

[WOMEN IN COMPANY]  
And some wives 

[HAMILTON]  
Come from all corners of this new nation,  


[COMPANY]  
Just like New York!

[HAMILTON]  
You try getting everyone in the city going the same direction!

[BURR]  
Congress wants a winter campaign in Valley Forge -

[HAMILTON]  
With what?  
Before we arrived, the British had stolen our supplies,  
The buildings were torched, the earth was scorched.  
We have to build our own shelters, twelve men to a shack,  
Razing the forests and not enough tools to do that.  
Freeze, thaw, blizzarding sleet, then rain to flooding,  
The roads were disintegrating and muddy.  
Different states equip their men differently,  
Fulfill their obligations indifferently,  
Do they value freedom so differently?  
Government so cheap new officers come with IOU's,  
How can you fight a war, when you won't even pay for shoes? 

Lafayette's spending his own money for his men,  
Why can't our government do the same?

Living in dugouts, sitting in our own trash,  
Food badly cooked and full of ash,  
Shitting in the road and eating next to it,  
Men are foraging, surviving on fire cake at half ration,  
We are accepting all kinds of donations,  
Do you really think our soldiers are more fit because of this?

When asked, the General is terse

[WASHINGTON]  
We going to "Starve, dissolve, or disperse."

[COMPANY]  
Meanwhile, the British are in Philadelphia, wining and dining, dancing and relaxing.

[HAMILTON]  
Typhoid, dysentery, smallpox, typhus,  
These diseases are going to ruin us,  
Conditions are scandalous,  
Our hands are filthy, rotting animals surround us.  
Too many weakened men lay in camp, 1500 or more are lost.  
Our numbers are falling,  
No one has come calling,  
Of men and staff,  
We now have half,  
Contracts are ending, we have no records, no accounts,  
Too little money to count.

[COMPANY]  
In rides the Prussian, Baron von Steuben,

[HAMILTON]  
Another gift from the French, then,  
He organizes all the supplies, all the men,  
And more importantly the latrines and the kitchens.  


[STEUBEN]  
"Mein Gott, Mon Dieu, scheisse, merde and bullshate!"

[HAMILTON]  
Laurens and I try to translate:  


[STEUBEN]  
"With regard to military discipline, I may safely say that no such thing existed in the Continental Army."

[HAMILTON]  
Twice a day he makes the soldiers train and drill,  
Everyday, they get better and faster, and faster still,  
Using hands, guns and bayonets,  
All the soldiers, the regiments, the sergeants.  
Once summer comes, we'll be ready,  
Our hands will be steady,  
Our hearts and stomachs are resolute and calm,  
And summer will most definitely come.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to stay within the narrative/historic boundaries of "Stay Alive," meaning that I didn't want to wallow in the terrible conditions at Valley Forge (which were genuinely terrible and I could have gone on), and tried to move the narrative along to a more hopeful point. 
> 
> Burr, Laurens, and Lafayette were all in Valley Forge in winter 1778 with Hamilton and Washington. Laurens was an aide-de-camp, like Hamilton. Lafayette was a commander of a small group of men and famously shared hardships with his troops, even when rank would have put him above such deprivation. Burr was in command of a small group of men guarding a pass into the valley, imposing discipline.
> 
> I was really struck by something Washington wrote about the equipping of the soldiers and yet their doggedness in staying, " "You might have tracked the army . . . to Valley Forge by the blood of their feet."  
https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/valley_forge/grooming_clothing.html
> 
> A good background on Valley Forge conditions is on this youtube video from the National Park: Valley Forge, a Winter Encampment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LugGZvH7eiM&t=7s
> 
> Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben is a real historic person, and he is widely acknowledged to have turned the situation around in Valley Forge, moving the men from the local/colonial militias and state forces to and making the Continental Army a national fighting force. (He literally wrote the manual on that.) The quote about military discipline is a real one from the Baron (I made up the swearing, but he was well-known to have a rough vocabulary in multiple languages and the soldiers were quite fond of him because of this). He really didn't speak English before he arrived in the United States, so a variety of people, including Hamilton, assisted him with translations. Also, there was a policy at the time the Baron arrived was for Congress to only accept them as volunteers until they were either given a real post or until the war was over (hence, the IOU's).
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge  
http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/history/weather.html  
https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/vonsteuben.htm  
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/baron-von-steuben-180963048/  
https://www.thoughtco.com/baron-friedrich-von-steuben-2360603  
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/valleyforge.htm  
https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/johnlaurens.htm  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_von_Steuben  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Burr  
https://www.nps.gov/vafo/learn/historyculture/lafayette.htm


End file.
